Dear Mr. Trump,
I have a lot that I want to say to you. I have kept my mouth shut and tried my hardest to refrain from making negative comments about you on social media. I have tried my hardest to live by the principle that "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." I've made it a point to attempt to stay positive and put all my faith in the Democratic party, in hopes that they will elect Senator Sanders to be the democratic nominee, because according to political polls, he is the strongest chance of beating you in the general election. But I can't remain silent anymore. I will be as nice as possible, because I realize that I'm just a measly college student, and although you are not a politician, you are most likely going to be the republican candidate in the upcoming election.
I thoroughly respect your campaign slogan to make America great again. I really do. You, me, and everybody else in this country (as well as a lot of people in other countries) realizes that the country isn't exactly in a good place right now, and we need change. We need drastic change. And you want that. You're working for that. HOWEVER, the change that you want to bring to this country isn't quite the change that I had in mind. You were born in 1946, so I realize that a lot has changed in your lifetime, but I think that we can all agree on the fact that some of the policies, laws, and concepts that have changed in your lifetime were for the better. If you want to take this country back to the 50s, when women were expected to just stay home, when gay marriage was unthinkable, when abortion was illegal, and when segregation was still very very real, you need to think about the backlash coming your way.
First of all, let's talk about women. I get it. You're "traditional" in your thinking. You think that it is a woman's duty to find a man, settle down, get married, and have a few kids. The good old nuclear family. Beyond that, you don't want much else from women. You're stuck in the mindset that women should all be stay-at-home mothers who take care of the kids, cook, clean, and yearn for their husbands to return home from work each day. Well, I have some news for you. According to the Bureau of Labor, in 1948, only 17% of women in the United States worked outside of the home. The other 83% of women were stay-at-home mothers. In 1967, the number of stay-at-home mothers dropped to 49%, and in 2012, the number was down to 29%. The statistics show it all. Women do not want to sit at home all day.Women want to go to college/trade school and earn degrees beyond a high school diploma. Women want to enter the workforce. Women want to challenge themselves. Women want to better themselves. And most importantly, women don't want to be inferior to men anymore. I was pretty sure that we've moved past that in this country, but I guess you haven't. I find that ironic, because you have daughters. Our current president, Mr. Obama, highly disagrees with your views of women. Why? Because he has daughters too but he wants for his daughters to live in the best world that they can.
Speaking of women, I want to address a very important social issue in politics right now: Planned Parenthood and abortion. If I recall, prior to you announcing that you were running for president, you were pro-choice. As of August of 2015, you claimed that you changed your stance on abortion due to the fact that you had a friend who decided against ending their pregnancy, saying that "it was going to be aborted and that child today is a total superstar. It is a great, great child." I respect that. I've had experiences that have changed my opinions on a topic; it happens all the time. What I don't respect is that you are now extremely anti-Planned Parenthood. When asked if you plan to get rid of Planned Parenthood, you claimed that you would have to "think about it" because "it bothers [you] greatly that they are doing the abortions." First of all, Planned Parenthood offers many services other than abortions. But second of all, unless I missed something, you have never been a woman faced with the decision of whether or not to abort a child. Sometimes, this decision has a lot of complicated factors, such as the health of the woman and rape. Do you just expect ALL women to carry their pregnancy to term, regardless of any special circumstances the woman and/or the baby may have or may in the future encounter? The Roe v. Wade precedent was set in 1973, and there is no reason to overturn that now. The decision to abort a child is between a woman and her doctor. I'm sorry Mr. Trump, but you will never be a woman in the position of making the difficult life decision to abort a child. So please, do not talk about how you might want to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood simply because you had a revelation. Your case is one in a million, and it's not fair for you to force your personal agenda on the country because of your life changing experience.
The wall. Oh, the wall. The fact that you are so against immigrants to the point that you want to build a wall along the border is crazy. But the fact that you want to force Mexico to pay to have that wall built is completely asinine. I know your arguments about immigration. I know that you feel that people have to enter the country legally, or they should not be allowed to enter at all. And I agree that there have been problems with some of the illegal immigrants in this country. Yes, some immigrants have come to the country for the wrong reasons. But this only applies to a small number of illegal immigrants. I understand that you strongly believe that if somebody wants a better life and they want to flee from their native country and enter America, that they must do it the right way. I think everybody agrees on this. It just all goes back to the wall. You compared the wall you want to build to the Great Wall of China. Though the Great Wall of China is now just a tourist attraction, its original intent was security. And it failed. The Berlin Wall wasn't so successful either. People still attempted (and some succeeded) to scale the wall. And where's that wall now? Other walls around the world built to segregate and/or add security include the West Bank Wall, the Belfast Peace Walls, and walls in Egypt/Israel. While some of these walls were indeed successful for their purpose, the cost to maintain the walls is is hundreds of millions of dollars per year. I can think of hundreds of millions of better things to use my tax dollars on than a wall that may or may not be successful in keeping out illegal immigrants.
This point is short and sweet: you are not a politician. Though there are a lot of voters supporting you for this very reason, it is a little unnerving to me. A huge argument of your supporters is that to "make America great again," we need somebody who is not a politician, because politicians are corrupt. Amen to that. Throughout history, we have had our fair share of corrupt politicians. I will not argue that. But there is a reason that office holders are almost always politicians...THIS IS POLITICS. Just as I would not want a lawyer to be my brain surgeon, I would like for the political leader of my country to be a politician. Just because I love politics and have taken a few college classes that deal with politics, that does not mean that I'm a politician, and neither are you. Let's save this game for the big boys. Sure, they are the ones who got us in to this mess, but they know better than you how to get us out. I don't care that you are a business man. Sure, you know a lot about the economy, but your businesses have not been successful enough for me to trust you with the economic affairs of the United States of America.
Last, but certainly not least, you do not care about the welfare of the general public. You are not a good person. Harsh words, yes. But they are true. You are perfectly fine with the top percent of the 1% in this country controlling all the wealth of this nation, and you're perfectly fine with leaving the rest of us out to dry. You don't care about the environment. You don't care about women's rights. You are racist. But I will give you one thing: you're smart. You've figured out this whole campaign thing, and you figured it out pretty fast. You know all the tricks. You moved far to the right in your political beliefs at the start of your campaign, and now that you've basically won the republican nomination by default, you're moving more towards the middle to appeal to more voters. I'll give you credit for that one. You say the things that you know you should say. And I appreciate that you've at least figured out how to be successful in this campaign thus far. I do not appreciate the fact that you've changed your stance on issues. I do not appreciate that you don't respect women. I don't respect the way that you view immigrants. I don't respect that you're more concerned with 1% of people in this country than the other 99%. And finally, I have zero respect for the fact that you are so disrespectful to your running mates and to other politicians. Your comments to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are usually unintelligent, and just intended to be rude. I will never look past the things you've said to and about Elizabeth Warren. I would like to congratulate you on the fact that you have somehow managed to offend more groups of people than anybody else I've known to exist, and that's saying a lot. Even your own party doesn't want you in office. How does that make you feel?
So from a female college student who happily resides in the 99%, I want you nowhere near the Oval Office. You are the last thing that this country needs. If you want to make America great again, I suggest that you take a step back and think about the time period in which you want to take America back to. There are so many issues, both social and economic, that I didn't address for times' sake. But I will say one final thing. Yes, this country needs change. And we need it now. And yes, I realize that you plan to do just that, but the type of change that you want to bring this country is so regressive that it hurts. It scares me to think that you've been as successful as you have. It scares me that there are people all around me who are hanging on your every last word and agreeing with everything you say.
When asked how I would feel if you are elected to be the next president of the United States of America? Thank God for checks and balances.